Dr Kathleen Turner is currently Manager Strategy at the Griffith Asia Institute (GAI), Griffith University where she leads the Institute’s national and international program of strategic engagement. She is also President of the Australia Indonesia Business Council (AIBC) in Queensland and national Vice-President of the United Nations Association of Australia (UNAA).

Dr Turner is an experienced business executive having worked for many years in the private sector managing sustainability initiatives for major oil and gas infrastructure and mining projects throughout the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. She has been Director of the Islam and Civil Society Program at The Asia Foundation, designing and managing human rights and democracy-related programs with Muslim groups in Indonesia, and has previously undertaken multiple research projects on nationalism, governance and ethnic conflict at the Asia Research Centre in Western Australia and the South East Asia Research Centre in Hong Kong.

Dr Turner has a PhD in Politics and International Studies from Murdoch University with a focus on militant Islam in Southeast Asia. She is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, an alumni of the national Asialink Asia Leaders Program and a national Asia Literacy Ambassador. She is the author of a book on Islam and ethnic conflict in Eastern Indonesia and has published in international journals including, the Harvard Asia Quarterly and Asian Ethnicity. Dr Turner is fluent in Indonesian and has worked and travelled extensively around the Asia Pacific region, including in Indonesia and East Timor.

For more information on Dr Kathleen Turner, please see her LinkedIn page.